Non-impunity, the International Criminal Court and the African Union : Exploring the borderland of the international orders related to non-impunity

Abstract

This chapter argues that several African states have used the African Union (AU) to create the borderland of the global order on non-impunity and the AU order on non-impunity from which they benefit in many respects. It outlines the global and African orders related to non-impunity and define their borderland before the chapter analyses the reasons for this borderland’s emergence and its effects. The AU has constructed – though not institutionalised – an order that partly overlaps with the order anchored in the Rome Statute. Thinking in liberal terms, the AU order on non-impunity appears laudable for it goes much further than the Rome Statute as it covers ten additional crimes related to unconstitutional changes of government, piracy, terrorism, mercenarism, corruption, money laundering, trafficking of persons, drugs, and hazard waste as well as illicit exploitation of natural resources.